


the name you meant to have for me to call

by la_victorienne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, always-a-girl!Arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-19
Updated: 2010-08-19
Packaged: 2018-10-15 10:46:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10555026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: They don't really have a love story.





	

Jack Eames did not set out to be a thief and a blaggart. It just, sort of, happened, somewhere between "father disapproves of me" and "hey, I bet I can do that." He tells this to anyone who will listen.

"Anyone" does not include Elizabeth Arthur, no matter how hard he tries.

"That's crap," she informs him. "Either you wanted to be a criminal or you didn't. There is always another choice."

"Oh? What was yours?" he wants to ask. Instead, what comes out is " _you're_ criminal." It sounds like a five year old's playground taunt, and he looks at the glass in his hand like the gin and tonic has deceived him somehow. Arthur just smiles, fine and sweet, all red lips and white teeth.

"Yes, Mr. Eames," she says. "I am."

Eames thinks, not for the first time, that perhaps he is in over his head.

 

 

Watching Arthur in action is like watching a storm with no sound. She calculates, descends, and decimates in a matter of moments, identifying and eliminating targets without so much as an instant of hesitation. Eames is enthralled by the performance, by her catlike grace, by the seam in the back of her stockings. She's not even breathing heavily when she's done, a pile of projections around her, and Cobb smiles wickedly at Eames. "What do you say? Trust us to have your back?"

Eames holds out his hand to shake, but his eyes are still on her.

 

 

"I've never met anyone like you," he confesses into her shoulder, mouth drifting over her skin.

"Well, of course not," she replies, though there's a hitch in her voice. "I'm the only one of me there is."

Eames laughs and laughs, at inanity and the look she's giving him and the incandescent way he feels. Arthur doesn't find this nearly as amusing, but when he bends his neck towards her she meets his mouth with a push and a kiss.

"Idiot," she says when he pulls away.

Yes, he thinks. I love you, too.

 

 

Cobb calls him aside only once after Mal dies, and his eyes look haunted. 'She'll fight you," he states matter-of-factly.

"Yes," Eames agrees.

"She needs you," Cobb continues. "She needs someone who can take care of her."

"Yes," Eames says again, because he can hear what Cobb isn't saying, knows what Cobb can't do. Cobb just nods once and turns away, like he's searching for something he doesn't know he lost. Eames feels briefly, achingly sorry for him and watches him go, thinking of Arthur all the while.

Later, when he has her alone, she looks up at him like she's drowning, and it's the most vulnerable he'll ever see her in his life. He cups her face in his hands and kisses her without comment, holding on as much for his life as for hers.

 

 

They still fight, and they fight like hell. Eames wakes to an empty bed and a note that says "on a job," and he knows to call Cobb if he needs to find her. He travels, sends her postcards, gambles away whatever he has, then goes out and cheats his way into more. He does only one extraction without her, just to see if he can. It lands him in the hospital, two shots in the shoulder and a wallop of a concussion, and he never tries it on his own again. He'd rather starve forever with her than make money without, and he tells her as much when she comes to scowl at his bedside.

"You're a pig," she informs him. "We would never starve." But she puts her bag down and sits in the awful hospital chair and crosses one slim leg over the other, and he is impeccably polite to the nurses for the rest of the day.

She's asleep when the matron does her rounds, contorted into an impossible shape, and he asks for an extra blanket. "We're getting married," he tells the grey-haired woman, and receives a kind-hearted cluck in response.

"I heard that," Arthur mumbles, clutching at the blanket.

"I know," Eames replies, and hums himself happily to sleep.

The next morning, she's gone again. Eames checks out, heads to Mombasa, buys ugly shirts and plays the tables. He's got a friend there, that Yusuf fellow from the early days, and Arthur knows it. She'll find him, he's sure. When she's ready.

 

 

There's a car waiting for them in LA. MR. AND MRS. ARTHUR, the sign reads. He smiles, wide and bright, and lifts her bag onto his trolley.

"I love you," he says, just once.

"You'd better," she replies, and slips her hand into his.  
  



End file.
